


An Education

by Vana



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Drunkenness, Gen, Pre-A Game of Thrones, Prostitution, cursing, the usual Robert situation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 23:03:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3668490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joffrey’s personal bodyguard thinks back on a turning point in the prince’s life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Education

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redcandle17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/gifts).



> This story's prompt was: Everyday life in King's Landing prior to AGoT, preferably a look at the dysfunctional Cersei/Robert royal family.
> 
> Thank you to [TheMuteOracle](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMuteOracle/pseuds/TheMuteOracle) for the idea and to [CommaSplice](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CommaSplice/pseuds/CommaSplice) for the beta!

A dog had to have good ears to survive, in this city. A good nose was better, but Gregor had done for that, long ago. Sandor Clegane, half propped on his elbow in the dark, wrenched his thoughts from their usual bitter path down toward his brother, and forced himself to _listen._

Yes, the king had returned, Sandor decided from the heavy, clumsy shuffle of footsteps past his room … past the nursery where the babies slept … and past the red and gold, velveted chamber that cradled and cosseted Prince Joffrey, five years old and full of toothy smiles and innocent demands.

It didn’t matter what King Robert was doing — or which giggling whore he had brought back with him — as long as the boy was safe. Queen Cersei had given him this one duty. “You will keep my son safe,” she had said in her low, subtle voice, “or we’ll see if an honored place on a pike improves the look of your face at all.”

There was nothing Cersei would not do for her firstborn child, Sandor learned — even threaten a dangerous man who could easily snap her in two.

Joffrey had been three then, and Sandor nine and ten, new to King’s Landing. Tywin Lannister had sent him thence to get him away from Casterly Rock and what was left of House Clegane, thinking the king might find him useful with his strength and his near-silence. Three years later his head decorated no pike, the queen had left off threatening him, and he had found places where his scars and burns could be ignored with coin or favors: whorehouses, alehouses, and, surprisingly, with the little prince.

He was a sweet boy as children went, not over-clever and too much given to whining at times, but tolerable enough. It was his parents who were the problem. The only saving grace was that they hated each other more than they hated Sandor, or anyone else.

Moments passed and Robert’s door closed; not the door to the bedchamber he shared with the queen, but another room to which he retired when he felt “ill.” More like sick of his wife, Sandor knew. That bed was where he took whores. There were too many to count, and it was said the king had fathered more than a dozen bastards across the Seven Kingdoms. _Making the eight_ he called it — fucking a woman from each of the Seven Kingdoms and one from the Riverlands. Sandor did not have a head for numbers but he imagined King Robert had made the eight at least eight times, back before he was fat and sloppy. Now he could only get a woman because of his office, the office of king — and because of the man he once was.

This whore was a loud laugher. Sandor did not like the loud women when he visited the brothels. “Give me a quiet girl,” he would growl, “one that doesn’t laugh, so I know she’s not laughing at me.” He heard King Robert’s whore through the walls, and hoped the commotion wouldn’t wake up Queen Cersei. He had had to deal with _that_ before of a midnight.

Just as Sandor was settling back down on his rough pillow to sleep, another noise caught his ear, closer this time. Joffrey was not old enough yet to try to sneak, and his bare feet landed with a thump on the floor. Out of bed, but why?

Sandor roused himself with a sigh. He was no nursemaid, but the prince had to be kept safe. So generally it came down to him to chase Joffrey back to bed when he awoke before dawn.

It was a moonless night and the corridor was dark. Joffrey was feeling his way along the walls as Sandor stumbled into his breeches and boots. He was reaching for his knife and belt when he heard a door creak open. Was it the queen’s door, or Robert’s?

“Mother? Father?” Joffrey’s tremulous voice carried like a horn down the silent hall. He was not in the queen’s chamber. Sandor froze. “Father? … Mother? I need a drink of water.”

 “Joff? Get out, you little beast …” Robert’s voice boomed out. His woman’s breathing was loud as she held back a scream. “Go back to bed, damn you!” the king yelled.

Sandor reached the boy and grasped him by the shoulder. “I’ll bring it to you,” he started to say, and then the door flew open again and Queen Cersei stood with a candle, burning so bright that Sandor and Joffrey both cringed from it. Robert rubbed his eyes. The woman in the bed shrunk under the covers.

“ _Father?_ ” said Joffrey again. “Who’s that?”

“Tell your son,” the queen said. “Introduce Joffrey to your whore … Your Grace.” Her quiet voice shook with rage.

“Go back to bed, Cersei,” Robert muttered. It seemed to be the only command the king could give. “Joffrey, you as well. Take your dog—” he nodded at Sandor, a veiled jab at the sigil of his House — “and get out, all of you, get out!”

Then Cersei exploded. “You answer his question!” she screamed, flying at Robert in the bed. “You tell him who that is! Pull your cock out of her and go _get your son a drink of water_!”

Sandor laid a hand on his knife hilt. If he had to protect the prince, even from his parents, he was prepared to do so.

Joffrey was staring back and forth between his parents.

“I’m not his damned nursemaid! Clegane, aren’t you meant to be taking care of him, you useless cur? Why did he come in here anyway, the little prick?” Robert roared, red-faced now. The drunken fit was still on him, Sandor knew — though the king had little love for his golden-haired son, he knew enough not to use such language sober.

“How was he to know his father would be lying with some whore?” retorted Cersei.

_The whole of the seven kingdoms could have guessed_ , Sandor thought.  _And the Riverlands._

“Get out,” Robert said once more, his voice ominous and heavy now. “Or you’ll wish you had.”

Cersei snatched up Joffrey without a word to Sandor. “Mother will take care of you,” she said. She slammed Robert’s door behind her and the three were out alone in the corridor.

“No.”

“No? But Joffrey said he wanted water?”

“My dog will get it for me,” Joffrey said, stubborn. “Like Father said.”

Sandor, for the first time, felt anger toward the child. _He is a simple little boy with a simple child’s need_ , he reminded himself. _Only water. But now, he calls me his dog_.

“Yes,” the queen agreed absently. “He will. And then Mother will sing Joffrey back to sleep.”

“No,” said the prince again. “I can sleep by myself.”

Cersei’s beautiful face stilled, then crumpled. Though Sandor hardly believed it of himself, he felt a pang of pity toward her. This boy was all she had, all she loved — the two babes in the nursery were not old enough to love her back and she had especial fondness for her firstborn. And now he was dismissing her. Pulling away from his mother, far before his time.

That was when it all started to go terribly wrong, Sandor realized as the months went by. It was when Joffrey first found in himself the makings of a monster. If he had merely gone one more door down the hall that night … if he had roused his mother instead of the king …

In the years that followed, the boy hardened himself into a mocking shell of his father’s courage, with his mother’s cruelty inside — the worst of both his parents. All his affection vanished, along with his respect, even for the Hound, as he was now exclusively called.

“You’ve got to be a man, Tommen,” the Hound overheard Joffrey say to his baby brother. “You scream, you threaten, you tell them what you want, and then no one can hurt you and everyone has to do what you say.”

That was before he decided he could make Tommen do what he wanted, too.

Once, a new stablehand approached Sandor. He didn’t yet know that as a rule, no one spoke to the Hound. “That prince, there’s something ain’t right about him,” said the man cautiously. 

“You’ll lose your head if you say so to anyone else,” Sandor retorted. “Prince Joffrey is his mother’s son. Soon they’ll make a match for him and he’ll be wed and he’ll be the king.

 “The girl they marry him to,” he added in an unusual moment of candor, “I pity her, crown and all. It’ll be a worse life than the pits of filth in Flea Bottom. Whoever she is, wherever she comes from — she better be hard and mean as they come."


End file.
